As many of you know, my doctoral thesis comprises two experiments and a breeding project revolving around geosmin, the molecule that confers earthy aroma to table beets. I, like the two Goldman Lab beet researchers before me, have measured geosmin in table beets with the GC-MS (gas chromatograph-mass spectrometer), an instrument that measures the abundance of molecules by separating them by size and structure.
Over the past four years, I’ve spent about 350 hours – about 21,000 minutes, if your calculator isn’t handy – converting 2,276 beet slurry samples into data points representing geosmin concentration.
This particular GC-MS protocol requires two 1.5-hour work periods, morning and night, at either end of its 8-hour process. It becomes either a constant companion or a taskmaster, depending on my perspective. The work is divided into two-week “campaigns,” a word chosen by my predecessors that captures the dogged and results-driven nature of the work but obscures its requirement for solitude and decided lack of festivity. The work is quiet and the frozen test tubes cold on the fingertips; it requires precision, rewards an abiding spirit that tolerates repetition and fatigue. It has honed my capacity to be exactly where I am, to allow minutiae to whisper me their wisdom.
I learned several years ago that the GC-MS is unconcerned with my mood or what I might be missing in the world outside of my lab. It wants exactly 1.95 microliters of menthone per beet slurry vial, please and thank you; it wants its autosampler magnet wiped ever-so-gently each day; it wants its septum changed every third run, after allowing 35 minutes for its injection port to reach 40 degrees C. And if I don’t abide, it doesn’t rage; it just responds with numbers that don’t make sense and waits patiently, maintaining resting temperature, while I cry or swear in anticipation of weekend sleep lost or another late, solitary fried-egg dinner. It’s there, when I’m ready, to supply correct data, accumulating in graceful right-skewed distributions, of the geosmin in exactly twelve silver-capped vials of beet slurry at a time. It may be oblivious to the resplendence of its magenta or fire-gold or purple-grey subjects, but it is meticulously attentive to its task.
After four years and 233 repetitions, this GC-MS protocol has become both a tool and a teacher. It has taught me not to force. It has taught me to pay patient attention, to do things right instead of twice. It has taught me that what I do when I’m alone counts. It has taught me to show up, except when I can’t. That there is such a thing as too much.
I can’t say that I will miss it. I’ve learned how to fill the margins of my days with beautiful things to do and people to be with, so I don’t need my time occupied as I once did. But like any challenging teacher, this protocol presented a barrier to my habits and assumptions that, over time, became a mirror. It’s helped me see, and it’s helped me see myself. And for that I owe it a proper goodbye.
Don't call me a butterfly, or maybe do 